


(you) set my soul on fire

by fleurting



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurting/pseuds/fleurting
Summary: Maya’s never been good with feelings. Not with saying them aloud. But she is good at art. And she’s good at pouring herself into her pieces. And she’s good at Riley. At knowing her, at loving her. It might be the thing she’s best at.





	(you) set my soul on fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alchemicink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemicink/gifts).



> Alchemicink, in your letter you mentioned a couple of first times as possible prompts so I thought you might enjoy their first time confessing their feelings for one another. I hope you enjoy this!
> 
> All the love and gratitude to L for looking this over.

Maya gnaws at her lip as she paces across Riley’s floor. She hasn’t worried about asking Riley for anything in years, sometimes she’s even taken without asking, knowing Riley’s answer would always be yes. But this is different.

Graduation is looming and she still hasn’t told Riley how she feels. How she’s the one thing Maya has always believed in. How she’s the one thing to always make Maya happy. How she’s the first thing Maya thinks of when she wakes up in the morning and the last thing she thinks of before going to sleep at night. She’s everything.

Maya’s never been good with feelings. Not with saying them aloud. But she is good at art. And she’s good at pouring herself into her pieces. And she’s good at Riley. At knowing her, at loving her. It might be the thing she’s best at.

So, she has a plan. She’s going to paint Riley, how she really sees her, and she’s going to paint everything,  _everything_ , she feels into it. And most importantly, she’s going to show it to her. To Riley. And hope she gets it. And hope she feels the same. This is the part she’s scared of. Because she doesn’t know if she can handle it if she doesn’t. Doesn’t know if she can handle Riley’s pitying voice or if Riley suddenly starts to hesitate before hugging her. The logical side of her knows that Riley would never do that, even if she didn’t return Maya’s feelings. But Maya has always listened to her heart over her head. And her heart is terrified.

“Hey,” Riley says, coming through the door, soda and popcorn in hand. “You ready?”

Maya answers affirmatively and takes a deep breath while Riley’s distracted setting up the movie. She can do this. This is the easy part.

“Hey, Riles,” Maya says, pointedly looking at the TV screen and not at Riley. She needs to sound nonchalant, like this isn’t a big deal.

“I have a question.”

“Shoot,” Riley says around a mouthful of popcorn.

“I want to paint you.”

Riley knocks their shoulders together and it sends a spark through Maya’s entire body, just like it does every time they touch.

Riley waggles her eyebrows. “Like one of your French girls?”

Maya rolls her eyes. She’s so ridiculous, and so adorable, and Maya is so very much in love with her. All she wants to do right now is make the distance between them nonexistent, press her lips against Riley’s.

She can see exactly how it would play out too. The surprised sound Riley would make at first, the soft hum as she processed what was happening. How she’d taste like the clear, cotton candy lip gloss Riley’s been wearing since sixth grade, not because it’s good product but because she likes the taste that much.

In Maya’s most indulgent daydreams, Riley pulls away, mutters a soft “Huh,” and then comes back in for more. But that’s nothing but a fantasy.

“Seriously. I want to paint you.”

“O-Kay,” Riley says, in that sing-song voice that would be annoying on anyone else. “So, paint me. You’ve painted me before. Why do you need my permission? Wait! Don’t tell me. It’s for a contest, isn’t it? Oh, you’re so great, Maya! You’re definitely gonna win.”

Riley’s enthusiasm is infectious even when it’s misplaced.

“No, calm down. It’s not for a contest,” Maya laughs. “But thank you for your support.”

“‘Course,” Riley shrugs, like her support of Maya is unwavering, like nothing Maya can do will ever break it. God, how Maya hopes that’s true.

“If it’s not a contest then what is it?”

“Uh, just a project I’m working on,” Maya says.

“For the portfolio to go with your college applications?”

“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, I’m doing a series of character studies,” Maya says, making something up on the spot. “I think they could be really good. But I’d need you to sit for me. I really wanna get this one right.”

“Sure, Maya,” Riley smiles. “Whatever you need.”

* * *

“Alright, where do you want me?”

There’s a fleeting second of silence before they lock eyes and start giggling over the suggestiveness of Riley’s word choice.

“Bay window,” Maya says definitively. She has a clear picture in her mind and she wants reality to be as close to her imagined piece as possible before she starts melding the two together.

She positions Riley so she looks like she’s lightly perching on the bench, looking to her left, a serene smile on her face. The sun is streaming through the windows, creating a golden halo of light around Riley. This, this, is what she wants to paint. Warmth and love and happiness, and comfort and blind faith, all wrapped up in one neat, Riley-sized little package.

She sketches out the scene before her, not worrying about any mistakes or little details, just focusing on the general outline of the image before her. She sneaks a picture with her phone, ostensibly to study in attempts of recreation, but more realistically, to study just because.

When it comes to Riley, Maya’s memory is practically photographic. She can name the location of all of Riley’s freckles, she knows the exact place on Riley’s head where she needed thirteen stitches after busting her head open on a neighbor’s trampoline, knows about the scar on the underside of her upper thigh, the one she got after a particular nasty fall when learning to ride a bike. She doesn’t  _need_  a picture to show her all of the little details that make up Riley. But she takes one anyway, for purely selfish reasons.

* * *

It takes two weeks for her to achieve the end product.

She spends three days trying to get the shade of the sun and it’s rays of light just the right shades. It takes hours of experimenting with yellow and gold and orange and white before she’s satisfied. When she’s finished it’s so bright it almost hurts to look at it. Just like Riley’s smile.

It takes her six days to achieve the glimmer in Riley’s eyes. It takes five different shades of brown to show all the highlights and lowlights in her hair. It takes hours and hours of mixing and pairing and wanting to scream because it feels like she’ll never get it right. At one point she slumps down onto the floor, frustrated, angry tears in her eyes, close to defeat. Maybe Riley just isn’t capable of being captured in still form. Maybe she’s bigger than that. But a voice in her head, one that sounds suspiciously like Riley’s forces her to keep going.

And before she knows it, she’s finished. She’s exhausted, her arm and wrist are aching beyond belief, but she’s  _finished_. And it’s exactly what she imagined.

* * *

She takes it to Riley’s the next day, squeezing it and herself through the window to avoid any questions from the Matthews.

Riley had said she was fixing something to eat when Maya texted her so Maya hurriedly sets up the painting while she’s still gone.

A couple of moments later Maya hears footsteps outside the door so she quickly hops onto the bed, sitting on her hands to stop from fidgeting.

“Hey! What are you doing here?”

“It’s finished,” Maya says without preamble, nodding to where the painting is resting against the window sill.

“Maya,” Riley says, awed, voice in a whisper. “It’s  _beautiful_.”

She studies for a few heart-stopping minutes and Maya looks at it, trying to see it from Riley’s point of view.

A beautiful brunette sits in front of a window, her head obscuring the sun. Rays of light erupt from around her, like she herself is the star. Her gaze is to the left, her rich, brown eyes on an unknown subject. Emotions swirl in her eyes, kindness, happiness, love. Anyone would be happy to have her gaze upon them. Her smiles is equally as beautiful. Her lips are a soft pink, and are stretched into a adoring smile, but the corner of her mouth holds a tiny smirk, like she’s hiding something, a miniature Mona Lisa.

She’s a contradiction, both the girl next door and completely unattainable.

She’s beautiful. There’s no other word for it.

“Is this how you see me?” Riley asks, voice coming out in a whisper.

Maya shrugs, trying to act like this isn’t a monstrous, possibly life-altering thing she’s about to admit to. “You’re my sun, Riles. You make me feel...everything.”

Maya looks at the Riley in the painting, unable to face the Riley in reality for this part. “Warmth, comfort, happiness, love...” She trails off, her gaze first finding Riley’s eyes and then flitting down to her lips. “Desire.”

“Maya,” Riley says.

“I love you, Riles,” Maya interrupts before Riley can say anything, before she possibly rips Maya’s heart into shreds.

“More than a best friend. More than anything. And I know you might not feel the same but I needed to—-"

Riley’s laugh cuts her off. “Of course I love you.”

“As more than a friend?” Maya asks, not ready to believe that all her dreams could be about to come true.

“More than anything,” Riley replies, taking Maya’s hand.

“How could I not love you?” Riley says, softly, looking at Maya the same way the Riley in the painting is looking at whoever is out of view.

Maya bites her tongue, stopping herself from saying there are many people who have found it easy not to love her. Now isn’t the time for her insecurities.

“I don’t know what to do now,” Maya says honestly. “I wasn’t expecting to get this far.”

Riley rolls her eyes, as if Maya not expecting Riley to love her back is preposterous. Maybe in Riley’s world it is. But in Maya’s world Riley loving her back, in this way, is unimaginable. It’s happening right now and Maya still can’t fathom it.

“I‘m pretty sure we do this,” Riley says, leaning in and pressing her lips to Maya’s. She tastes like cotton candy, just like Maya thought she would. But it doesn’t feel like fireworks or any of the other romantic cliches she’s seen. It feels better. It feels like coming home.


End file.
